Headlines/October 14,.1998

IMS and LAS team up on a Mexican adventure. |

_ What do you get when you combine LAS,
SCMS and IMS? Neither a weak joke nor
an unfathomable anagram — you get an
innovative approach to producing leaming
materials.

At least that’s what happened this
summer when Colin Ridgewell of Latin
American Studies (LAS) which is
integrated in the Social, Cultural and
Media Studies (SCMS) department,
teamed up with Richard Heyman and
_ greg Davis of Instructional Media

Services (IMS) on a Mexican adventure in
an attempt to produce a video that would
show how the politcal and cultural history
of a region might be reflected in its
architecture.

“Tt all started early last year when
Colin talked to us about a project that he
was doing as part of his scholarly __
activity,” said Heyman. IMS equipped
Colin with a small, old, “prosumer” video
camera and Colin headed off to Spain.

His idea was to describe on videotape,
buildings in Spain that reflected the
baroque style, followed by a trip to
Mexico where he' would then be able to
compare the two styles.

Upon returning to UCFV and
screening his efforts, (“It was like viewing
buildings through the eyes of a drunken
camera operator, as things moved in and
out of focus, and the result was
nauseating.”) Ridgewell soon realized this
project was going to be more difficult than
he thought.

“I suggested he consider involving

‘EMS in the production in order to provide
- the appropriate expertise for shooting
video, ensuring quality lighting and, most
importantly, providing quality audio,”
Heyman said. “Colin became the
~-writer/director..:and we-all three became *
gophers and gaffers.”

Needless to say, safely shipping
about 150 pounds of video equipment all *
the way to Mexico City was no mean feat,
Heyman said. “We took everything we
could think of: extension cords, batteries
for the camera, lights, a battery operated tv
monitor, tripod, microphones and cables,
spare microphones and cables, sand bags,
lights, reflectors, video tape, still cameras,
our clothes and, of course, duct tape.”

“J must admit, I had my doubts when I
saw how much equipment Richard and
Greg had brought,” Ridgewell said. “The
camel’s back came close to breaking when
I noticed the three 30-pound sand bags

Colin, Greg and Richard back at Vancouver airport with “some” of their luggage.

that were to weigh down the light stands
in case of strong winds! We were aiming
to move all this by air and public bus
around a large area of Mexico?? ”
(Ridgewell would later admit to a
budding relationship with a certain tripod
with which he became inseparable for the
eight days of filming — “we now find it
difficult to be apart and so, meet to go to
the occasional film or to have a quiet
lunch, someplace special.”)
“Fortunately, Colin had been to
Mexico before and had not only scouted
out our shooting sites, but had worked
relentlessly right up to the day we left
Vancouver (Thanks, again, Colin!) to

arrange for our accommodations — some °_
of which were magnificent structures in...

their own right,” Heyman said.

.- Their flight from Vancouver took — ...
them to Mexico City where they captured
on video the baroque structures around the
central square, called the Zocalo; a .

’ gathering place that can be found in all:

Mexican cities and towns no matter the’
size.

From Mexico City they traveled by ©
bus to Tlaxcala, about 100 miles south;
where the movie ZORRO was shot.

- Next, it was south to Puebla, the
second largest city they visited and the
most polluted. Then it was north to
Guanajuato, a wonderful, university town
nestled in the mountains from which silver
was mined extensively about 200 years
ago. os

From Guanajuato, another taxi and bus
ride took them to their most northerly
stop, Zacatecas, high up in the plateau
region of Mexico where the wind never
seemed to stop blowing.

Eight, very intense, hot and dusty
days of shooting in six towns and

“approximately 12 locations later, they had
-what they needed for the video.

IMS is now involved in editing
together all the video shots taken. The
finished product will be approximately 45
minutes long and will provide a
comparison between Spain’s baroque ©
architectural design and Mexico’s
influence on that design.

As Ridgewell states in his _
documentary, “‘...people have strong
emotional responses to the buildings that

are part of their lives...buildings.have

meaning for people. And this goes

beyond the function for which they were

designed.”

When completed, the video
documentary will be available through the
UCFV libraries. ten,